Countdown
by Snowlia
Summary: Deamon wanted absolutely nothing to do with Cassidy O'Rourke. However, he owed the boy's mother, and for her there was nothing he wouldn't do.


**Author's Note: **After my friend and the wonderfully talented writer Feisa wrote her short story 'Inheritances', it inspired me to write my own headcannon of Cassidy's ancestry. After a bit of persuading on her part, I finally decided to do it. As always I would also like to thank the wonderful Blodwedd for betaing this and making sure I don't embarrass myself anymore than entirely necessary. This may seem a bit jumbled and I certainly hope it is coherent, but here it is, _Countdown_.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Nightschool, or Dante's Inferno.

**November 1998. **

Tick. Tock.

Deamon was cold.

It wasn't a sensation that was common with him, after all he was a Nereshai, a god in his own right. Hindrances like hot, cold, or uncomfortable were usually lost on such higher beings. Still, his cold did not come from any influence of the weather, but from the ice lodged in his heart.

Not to say that it wasn't quite cold outside. Siberia was a harsh mistress in the best of seasons, and as she currently sat just on the cusp of winter, her mercy was dwindling even further. Deamon's driver was little more than a pair of eyes peeking out between layers of fur and wool, giant hands gripping the steering wheel awkwardly with such thick gloves. If the other man was curious as to Deamon's lack of winter-wear, he didn't vocalize it.

For miles around them in all directions there was no sign of color, nothing but white and grey for as far as either could see. Deamon exhaled uneasily, his breath rising in a fog before him.

He hadn't planned on coming here.

In fact, this was the last place he would ever want to be, and the ice in his heart was only growing as the car moved towards their destination.

Tick. Tock.

The cold, while not common, was not something Deamon was entirely unfamiliar with. It was the kind of cold and numbness that could only follow grief, and a grief of the highest kind to be able to shake an immortal being. After all, if immortal meant nothing else, it meant watching everyone else die. That was a fact of never ending life.

But when an already so short life was ripped so violently even shorter, it was hard to not feel the pain.

Especially when she had been so beautiful.

Deamon hardly required as much sleep as the normal man, even the normal hunter, but recently he had found himself delaying it even more. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face.

She was laying on the beach, her limbs spread out awkwardly in the sand as the waves rolled up, moving her pallid hair like seaweed in the current. Her feet were bare, her jeans torn, and her sweater soaked through and stained with blood. Worst of all had been her eyes; open and staring out with a slack expression, clouded over with death.

He was beginning to forget what she had looked like when she was alive. Her smile, her laugh, even her bright eyes were becoming a blur as the nightmare of her corpse took over his every waking thought.

It was for her that he was making this journey.

She wanted him there; he could feel it in his bones. No ghost had appeared to him, no shadowy figure in the mirror, but she was still there, pestering him for one final wish. What man would deny a dead woman her last request?

Tick. Tock.

"We're here." The man's accent was thick, and even more muffled by his coat, but Deamon had heard him and nodded once before exiting the car.

The small structure that sat before them was made entirely out of metal, and almost blended in with the snow around it. It was low, and Deamon had to duck in the threshold as he entered.

The first room was almost sickening, with its quaint little fire place, fake wood paneling and assorted potted plants. Beethoven was playing from a small radio sitting on a large mahogany desk. From behind it a petit blonde woman looked up. Without a word to Deamon she pressed a button on the intercom and said something in rapid-fire Russian.

A door behind her opened, a burly and balding man leaning out.

"Mr. Deamon?"

Deamon nodded.

"Follow me."

Behind the door the false sense of hominess fell away instantly, giving way to solid metal walls and too bright florescent lights. The hallway led to a series of rickety lifts, all open, like steel gaping Hell mouths.

The metal screamed as it closed behind them, sealing them into the small cage.

Abandon all hope ye who enter here, for this was Fort Neprokhodimye; the hunter prison.

Down and down the lift went, grinding all the way, a few sparks flying here and there as the metal caught and complained.

As far down as they went, Deamon was still unprepared when they stopped.

When the gates opened, the pale lights hanging from the ceiling flickered on hesitantly, one at a time, continuing on down the metal cavern, going on and on into the distance. Deamon's guide stepped out first, his footsteps echoing off the walls. It seemed somehow even colder down here, Deamon's every breath a cloud before his eyes.

The cell doors were as solid as the rest of the wall, with a huge silver X over each portal, bars interlocking over top and a rusty combination pad next to each one. It was nothing like the human prisons, there was no yelling, no calling out or crying, there was nothing but silence behind the doors. There was nothing to indicate that there was a living creature behind each door beyond the harsh word emblazed above each door.

NOVAK.

RAVENCROSS.

BAZZLEJETTE.

STRANGE.

MINNICK.

"Here," the man said suddenly, stopped before a door, exactly like every other, except for the name.

O'ROURKE.

A code was punched in and key pushed into a lock, and then the bars were retracting, the X breaking apart, and the door rising. The other man stood back, allowing Deamon to enter. The door closed behind him once again and a light flared to life in the dark room. There was nothing but four steel walls, and a tall, lanky man chained to a chair in the center.

"Top of the mornin' to ya, Deamon."

The temperature of the room dropped even further.

"Hello, O'Rourke."

Tick. Tock.

One corner of O'Rourke's mouth quirked up in his infamous sideways smile, cracked lips over perfectly white teeth. His skin was deathly pale; his freckles looking almost grey in contrast. Even his trademark flaming orange hair was beginning to tint silver in spots, despite his young age.

The stress of running an underground empire finally affecting him physically.

He was skinnier than Deamon remembered, his clothes hanging off of him. Various tubes were trailing across the floor and disappearing behind a few bandages on his right arm. Deamon knew at least one of those was pumping sustenance in, and another Veres. Though the cracked skin that was creeping up his long neck seemed to give him no trouble, and Deamon had a feeling it had been cracked long before they had begun pumping him with the poison.

"How are you Deamon?" His words were scratchy and rough, as if he hadn't spoken in a while, laced with a heavy Irish accent. The various scars and burns across his face twitched and pulled with his mouth's movement.

He was beaming, his green eyes bright and alive despite his condition and the numerous chains holding him fast in place. Deamon couldn't remember ever seeing O'Rourke look like anything other than dangerously gleeful.

Well, one time.

O'Rourke had beat him to her body, that night on the beach.

The great O'Rourke, the feared and wanted O'Rourke, had dropped to his knees, in the sand, hands shaking as he pushed back her hair and tried to stop the gashes on her face that were tinting the sea foam around her pink. It was too late though, her eyes were open and her soul was gone.

Tick. Tock.

Her death would go on O'Rourke's long list of crimes, but, as much as Deamon hated O'Rourke with every fiber of his being, he knew that the look O'Rourke had turned on her that night had not been one of her murderer.

It had been a look of complete heartbreak and devastation. Despite their mutual hatred and blame, in that moment the two men had more in common than ever before.

"I've been better," Deamon countered coldly,

O'Rourke smirked again, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Can't argue with you there."

Deamon resisted the urge to curl his lip, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other.

"So why did you come here, I can't imagine it was just to pay me a visit, despite how devastatingly handsome I might be."

"She wanted me here." It all came out in a rush, one annoyed and hissed breath, but it stopped O'Rourke's teasing, the side of his mouth falling back and eyes widening just slightly.

"Yes, I suppose she would." O'Rourke's mirth was gone in an instant. He cleared his throat and shifted, his chains clanking across the floor. "I need a favor."

"A favor?" Deamon spat in shock, his fury rising unchecked. "You need a favor from me?"

"Yes," O'Rourke continued, as confident as ever. "But more importantly, she needs a favor." In the silence that followed O'Rourke narrowed his eyes at Deamon, and Deamon caught a glimpse of the monster they all said he was. "You owe her."

"How do you figure?" Deamon snarled. "She left my team. She chose you." They both knew there wasn't a single thing he wouldn't do for her, dead or alive.

O'Rourke said nothing for a moment, running his tongue over his lips.

"You killed her."

Tick. Tock.

Deamon's blood ran cold in his veins. His voice was ice. "She was dead the moment she told me she was in love with you." It was true, the moment she had caught sight of him at the first Scoring he had taken her to, her eyes had lit up, and in that single moment Deamon had known it was her end. O'Rourke had been cocky and confident, radiating something sinister and rebellious from the start, and yet she had been taken in less than a minute.

His poor sweet seer, who had been so innocent and pure, beautiful and sinless, had packed her bags in the middle of the night and run off.

The angel had fallen in love with the demon.

"No," O'Rourke countered, pulling Deamon from his painful memories. "No, not at all. When she was with me…I think it was the only time she ever lived at all."

"You turned her into a warrior," Deamon accused, his voice low, more desperation than anger in his voice. "She was _safe_ with me. She was a seer."

"If you didn't know that she was born to be a warrior, then you didn't know her at all," O'Rourke had abandoned his calm façade, his voice rising in anger. He allowed one more moment of accusatory glaring before he recomposed himself. "It was when you told the council of our location, that was the moment she was dead," his voice was flat, but Deamon heard the hatred dripped from the words.

"She wasn't supposed to die." The words were out of Deamon's mouth before he could stop them, before he could take them back.

The final part of that phrase hung in the air between them.

_It was supposed to be you. You were supposed to die, not her._

"You owe her," O'Rourke pulled against his chains with one hand, holding back his own useless rage.

Deamon was biting the inside of his cheek, trying desperately to reign his own galloping emotions in. "What is it?"

O'Rourke seemed to steady himself a moment, inhaling deeply through his nose and closing his eyes. "I have a son-"

"I know that," Deamon cut him off, and O'Rourke opened his eyes with annoyed glance.

"I know you know that-"

"So why is my concern?"

"Quite rude for such ancient being, aren't you?" O'Rourke paused, waiting to see if Deamon would interrupt him once more. "Now, what I suppose I should have said was, I have two sons."

There wasn't anything more that he really had to say, Deamon understood.

Two sons.

The son before O'Rourke had stolen away his seer was the only one Deamon had ever heard about.

But there was a second.

"Her son." It was a whisper, barely a breath, but O'Rourke nodded.

"Our son."

Tick. Tock.

Time didn't seem to matter deep within the walls of Fort Neprokhodimye to begin with, but Deamon swore he felt the clock that was always running inside of his head stop ticking.

A son. A little boy, made up of equal parts her and him. Deamon had no idea how to feel, he felt like he had been doused in ice water, and yet was burning up at the same time. Part of her was alive, that little boy had her blood, and who knew what else? But it was tainted by the monster that sat before him.

"Your son," it came off as a gasp, a few of the consonants dropping off in the process.

O'Rourke tilted his head in a nod.

"So what do you want from me?" He asked, regaining his wits, though his mind was still swimming with the idea of this angel-devil child. "You want me to take it?"

"God no," O'Rourke scoffed, tipping his head back. "That, is the last thing I want." He was smiling, but the glint was back in his eye, a very serious threat to what he thought of that idea. "I don't want you to so much as touch him."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"I have a sister," O'Rourke continued. "She lives in the United States, southern Pennsylvania, now. Owns a pet kennel." For just a second, Deamon lost O'Rourke, he saw it in his eyes, a distance crossed them for just a moment, his lips quirking up in a smile that was neither sinister nor calculating, and then he was back just as fast. "I left everything in her name, she's in charge of both of the boys inheritances when they turn 18. I want him to go live with her until then."

Deamon almost asked what would become of the other boy, but stopped himself. It wasn't as if he cared.

"I don't want him left in the hunter system, Deamon," his voice was serious, the shadow of a plea softening his words. "I'm his father, it's not his fault, but it will follow him all his life."

It was true, and Deamon knew it. There was something about her child being labeled as the son of a murderer, of one of the greatest criminals to come out of hunter society in a century, that made Deamon feel a bit sick.

This was her child.

It couldn't be tainted like that.

"And you think that in Pennsylvania the name won't follow him?"

"Not in the human world."

Tick. Tock.

Deamon paused, that was the absolute last thing he had expected. "You…don't want him to be a hunter?"

O'Rourke closed his eyes, a tightness reaching the skin around his eyes as he scowled. "No."

For the first time in a very long time, Deamon was at a loss for words. Disinheriting a child of their hunter birthright was unheard of, and Deamon would have pegged O'Rourke as the last man on earth to attempt it.

"Why?"

The ginger man sighed heavily, opening his eyes again. How old was he, Deamon wondered, 25? 26? Younger? However many years he was, it was far less than was reflected in his eyes. There was too much death in his eyes, far surpassing even that of most hunters. He met Deamon's gaze. "I've lost too much, Deamon. I won't lose him."

"But…" Deamon floundered for words still. This was _O'Rourke._ No one in the history of the hunter civilization had come closer to overthrowing it. He had almost single handedly thrown their world into anarchy. He had connections in every great civilization in the world, human or otherwise. He didn't run the underground, he _was _the underground.

It seemed almost a waste that the greatest rebellion organization in the world didn't even have a plan for an heir. No matter that Deamon would have taken it upon himself to try to bring him down as fast as his father. A waste was still a waste.

"He will be better off in the human world, away from the shadows and blood and war. Maybe he will be gentle like his mother." O'Rourke seemed to consider for a moment. "My sister was always gentle. I'm sure he will be. She would have wanted it this way."

Deamon didn't need to ask to know that O'Rourke wasn't speaking of his sister anymore.

"It's all I ask," the chained man told him. "Just get him to her house. That's all. She'll take care of everything else. Wash your hands of us all afterwards. Just this one thing. One last favor for her."

They had both known his answer, long before he had nodded his head.

Tick. Tock.

O'Rourke didn't thank him, didn't say anything, because he knew well that this wasn't a favor done for him, and Deamon would only take offence to his gratitude.

With nothing left to say Deamon turned suddenly, the door opening instantly as he reached it. Behind him the light died, throwing O'Rourke back into darkness for who knew how long.

"Oh and Deamon," O'Rourke called out, his Irish accent growing strangely thick around his words.

Deamon paused, looking back into the curtain of black.

"His name is Cassidy… and watch out for his eyes. Ex-girlfriends can be bitches." The metal door lowered with a thud, silencing the other side, but O'Rourke's laughter still echoed off the walls, repeating and fading off into nothing.

Tick. Tock.

Deamon had fully meant to keep his agreement with O'Rourke. Get his son, take him to Pennsylvania, drop him off with his sister –Penelope Lovewright was her name- and then be done with the whole family.

And then they brought Cassidy O'Rourke out at the orphanage and Deamon forgot how to breathe.

He was too young too look much like either of his parents just yet, barely five years old and still sporting his baby fat. His hair was his father's, an explosion of orange that didn't seem quite natural in nature, but his eyes and entire demeanor was his mother's. Huge blue eyes were watching him cautiously, fingers clutched together just under his chin. There was a tentative smile on his face though, like he thought he might be making a new friend at any moment, the exact same look his mother had always sported.

Deamon had made it all the way to JFK airport with the boy, before he decided he couldn't hand him over. It didn't matter that Cassidy was half his father's, because he was half his mother's too, and Deamon wasn't going to let him out of his sight ever again.

Tick. Tock.

And the years went by and steadily that timid look that was once his mother's faded and gave way to the look of a seasoned hunter. He was unmatched in combat and smarter than any of the others. When he became the leader of the team, Deamon couldn't have been prouder.

Cassidy was as gentle as his mother, as kind and as loving, and Deamon had hope.

Sometimes Deamon thought it was as if all of his centuries on earth had meant nothing, since all wisdom could be thrown away on something as frivolous as hope in a matter of seconds.

Tick. Tock.

Deamon let hope take over, and tried to let ignorance win the war in his head. Even when Cassidy began to point out the same injustices that his father saw. Even when he showed that he would rather do what he thought was right than what was the law. Even when he began to show compassion for the night creatures.

Every day he was looking less like his mother and more like his father.

Tick. Tock.

Hunter history was easily forgotten, especially embarrassments like rebellions and anarchists, which was lucky for Cassidy, though he didn't know it. But sometimes at the Scoring, the patches of silence that followed the announcement of his name rang loudly in Deamon's ears. Other times seasoned warriors would throw him a spare glance, because even without his name Cassidy wore his father's face and there was no way around it.

Every day Deamon could hear the clock ticking in his head, could hear O'Rourke's voice echoing over and over.

"_You owe her." _

Tick. Tock.

Every day Cassidy saw more of the shadows and blood and war, and every day he was becoming more like his father.

Tick. Tock.

His unrest and uncertainty with the hunter system was growing, though Deamon knew he had no plans to do anything about it.

Tick. Tock.

One day that would all change, and the clock was counting down the days.

Tick. Tock.

One day he would learn the truth, would learn that he was a prince and there was a kingdom waiting for him to take command.

Tick. Tock.

He would learn of his mother, and father, and poor Penelope still sitting on a fortune in Pennsylvania, waiting for her lost nephew.

Tick. Tock.

Because with everything that Deamon taught Cassidy, with every new step he took, he wasn't only teaching his student, he was arming his fated rival.

Tick. Tock.

And one day Cassidy was going to take that throne and the war would start again, and Deamon would face him in battle just as he had his father before him.

Tick. Tock.

Deamon stood silently in the corner of the small house they currently inhabited. Cassidy was stretched out on the couch, a book in his lap as he laughed at something Ten had snapped at Jay, and Theresa lightly slapped his arm. He beamed at her and whispered something back, making her blush.

Tick. Tock.

Deamon smiled, allowing himself the moment.

Tick. Tock.

Cassidy had no idea of his fate, didn't even know of his parents.

Tick. Tock.

But it was only a matter of time now.

Tick. Tock.

Before the clock ran out.

Tick. Tock.

And that terrible night repeated itself.

Tick. Tock.

And Deamon would lose her all over again.

Tick. Tock.


End file.
